Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Warmest greetings of solidarity! Thank you for inviting me to give a brief international situationer to the member organizations of the International League of Peoples´ Struggle in the Northeast region of the US. It is of great importance that you understand the worsening crisis of global capitalism, the role of US imperialism and the growing resistance of the people.
Amidst the din of the electoral contest between the two parties serving US monopoly capitalism and its financial oligarchy, you must heighten your resolve to carry out the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle. The solution to the problems caused by US monopoly capitalism cannot be found in the periodic elections staged by the big bourgeoisie but in the revolutionary struggle of the people.
The crisis of the world capitalist system is the worst since the Great Depression and continues to worsen. It is deepgoing and protracted because it is the result of more than three decades of overaccumulation of capital by the monopoly bourgeoisie at the expense of the working people in both the developed and underdeveloped countries.
Under the auspices of the neoliberal policy of “free market” globalization, the monopoly bourgeoisie, with the financial oligarchy as the cutting edge, has been favored by the imperialist states with all the opportunities to accumulate capital and extract superprofits by pressing down wages, cutting back government social spending, liberalizing trade, investments and finance, privatizing public assets, deregulating all social and environmental safeguards and denationalizing underdeveloped economies.
As a result, the crisis of overproduction and the crisis of overaccumulation of capital have recurred at an accelerated rate and become more destructive to wage and living conditions. All attempts at debt financing at the levels of governments, corporations and households have failed to override the crisis of overproduction. They have only served to speed up overaccumulation through the extraction of profits in the real economy and through sheer financialization, involving the rapid generation of fictitious capital (as in the overexpansion of money supply and credit, financial bubbles, overvaluation of assets and unlimited creation of derivatives.)
The imperialist states and all their multilateral agencies like the G-8, G-20, IMF, World Bank and WTO have failed to solve the ever worsening economic and financial crisis. They have merely worsened the crisis by clinging dogmatically to the neoliberal policy, bailing out the monopoly bourgeoisie and financial oligarchy, granting them tax exemptions and other privileges, aggravating the public debt crisis and imposing austerity measures on the public sector and on the broad masses of the people.
The most developed countries, like the US, the European Union and Japan, have stagnated with extremely low rates of growth. Adversely affected by the greatly reduced exports to the US and the European Union, China is undergoing economic slowdown and is facing hundreds of thousands of strikes and protest actions by the workers and peasants. The whole world is now afflicted by economic depression, social unrest and political turmoil.
The broad masses of the people, especially the working people, are suffering from the escalation of exploitation in both developed and underdeveloped countries. These include high rates of unemployment, low incomes, indebtedness, soaring prices of basic commodities and services, homelessness, erosion of pensions, the dearth or lack of health insurance and deteriorated and yet more expensive social services.
Under conditions of economic and financial crisis, the working people are being plunged into conditions of deprivation, poverty and misery. The high rate of unemployment drives the capitalist employers to press down the wage and living conditions of those who remain employed. Third world conditions have descended upon many people in the imperialist countries. And conditions in the third world countries have become far worse, as these suffer ever heavier impositions by both the imperialists and the local reactionary classes.
The level of oppression has also risen in both the imperialist countries and client states. Reactionary currents like those of chauvinism, racism,
fascism, war mongering, religious bigotry and gender discrimination are running high. These are being whipped by the big bourgeoisie to distract the people from the roots of the capitalist crisis, to divide them and pit them against each other and to lay the basis for domestic repression, state terrorism and overseas military intervention and aggression.
The political conditions are far worse for the oppressed peoples and nations in the underdeveloped countries. Barefaced state terrorism is being carried out against the working people by regimes that are servile to the US and other imperialist powers. In the worst cases, the US and its NATO allies have unleashed wars of aggression and instigated counterrevolutionary wars, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
These have killed and maimed millions of people and devastated the social infrastructure.
Under the current global conditions of economic and financial crisis, all major contradictions are sharpening. These include the contradictions between the proletariat and people on one side and the big bourgeoisie on the side in the imperialist countries, between the oppressed peoples and nations on one side and the imperialist powers on the other side and among the imperialist powers.
We see significant manifestations of anti-imperialist and class struggle in the form of workers´ strikes and mass protests on various important issues concerning economic and social conditions, political repression, war, nuclear power and the environment in North America, European Union, Japan, China, Russia and other capitalist countries. In the countries stricken by the public debt crisis and austerity measures, such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, we have seen gigantic and militant protest mass actions in the current period.
In the countries of the oppressed peoples and nations, we see the extremely favorable conditions for the resurgence and advance of the national liberation movements through revolutionary armed struggles. The people´s wars in the Philippines, India and other South Asian countries are persevering and developing rapidly. The best armed and most active peoples fighting imperialism and its puppets are those who have been subjected to wars of aggression by the US and NATO, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Countries, like the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and other Bolivarian countries are assertive of national independence and thus strive to lead the people and get their support in anti-imperialist struggle. But there may be regimes that assert national independence but exploit and oppress their people in certain ways by some measure. Wherever and whenever the revolutionary or progressive forces have an alliance with the patriotic bourgeoisie, they must maintain and develop their independence and initiative.
The imperialist powers and their allies are still trying to maintain their unity and collaboration at the expense of the overwhelming majority of underdeveloped countries. But the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system is driving them to intensify their competition and to struggle for a redivision of the world. Their contradictions are becoming more evident than ever as they scramble for sources of energy and raw materials, markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence.
The US and NATO are preparing for further wars in Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. At the same time, the US has proclaimed its refocus on the Asia-Pacific region in order to reassert its hegemony. It has stirred up disputes over the South China Sea in order to further entrench itself in the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia. But it is also becoming obvious that the US is further being strained by imperial overstretch and fiscal problems.
It is the commitment and duty of all member-organizations of the International League of Peoples´ Struggle to pursue the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle and to fight for the rights and interests of the broad masses of the people, especially the working people, against the imperialist powers headed by the US and against all their reactionary allies. It is my fervent hope that you will continue to gain strength and intensify your mass struggles in the belly of the beast.
We fight for a fundamentally new and better world of greater freedom,
democracy, all-round development, social justice and peace. We are confident of advancing in our struggle because we are bound by revolutionary solidarity and our forces fight within their own national borders against the imperialist intruders and their reactionary puppets.###
